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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/29783511">Bitter Balm</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inver/pseuds/saturday_sky'>saturday_sky (Inver)</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Critical Role (Web Series)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Angst, Complicated Relationships, First Kiss, Love Confessions, M/M, Self-Loathing Caleb Widogast, Touch-Starved Essek Thelyss, Traumatized Caleb Widogast, hand in unlovable hand, post-127, two broken souls finding solace in each other</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2021-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2021-03-01</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-16 02:35:24</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>Teen And Up Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,628</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/29783511</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/Inver/pseuds/saturday_sky</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>“I care for you, Caleb,” Essek says suddenly, as Caleb walks towards the door to the rest of the outpost. “I expect nothing from it, but, ah. We are heading into peril tomorrow, and...honesty is a new habit.”</p><p>There’s a bitter edge of amusement beneath his words.</p><p>--</p><p>A conversation after the Nein return to Eiselcross, the day before the expedition. Feelings are hard for the unlovable.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Relationships:</b></td><td>Essek Thelyss/Caleb Widogast</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Comments:</b></td><td>31</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>347</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Bitter Balm</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>Just poking at what a confession might be like post-127 between Essek "living on borrowed time" Thelyss and Caleb "I am a murderer who doesn't deserve kindness" Widogast. I figure Caleb has come down from his 127 revenge-high at this point and is having some feelings about it. </p><p>Content Warning: Caleb's trauma brain, scourger habits, and self worth issues + Essek's fatalism and own self-worth issues make for a slightly tilted, uncomfortable dynamic.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>“I care for you, Caleb,” Essek says suddenly, as Caleb walks towards the door to the rest of the outpost. “I expect nothing from it, but, ah. We are heading into peril tomorrow, and...honesty is a new habit.”</p><p>There’s a bitter edge of amusement beneath his words.</p><p>Caleb pauses before the threshold, one hand on the freezing handle of the door. He weighs his options. It is better to let him down gently, he decides; they still need his aid on the expedition.</p><p>He turns around and walks forward around the desk until he stands in front of Essek. Essek, drawn with tension and perched tentatively on a small, standard-issue outpost chair, looks up at him with wide eyes.</p><p>His masks are being carefully held apart, lending him a fragile sort of transparency. Maybe before Caleb would have found the vulnerability moving, a glimmer of hope in the mirror; now it just seems to invite the hurt Caleb is so adept at giving these days.</p><p>"Essek," he says in a rough voice. "We should talk.”</p><p>They both wince at that.</p><p>“I think you know why...some things are difficult between us.”</p><p>“I do,” Essek says, and looks like he wants to huddle miserably into his mantle. But he merely takes a moment and then he is back staring up at Caleb, waiting to drink Caleb’s words in.</p><p>Caleb could twist the knife. Essek might even deserve it. Instead, he lets his gaze drift off and survey the barren box that is Essek’s outpost quarters. It’s so small, he thinks. Common.</p><p>Essek had been someone once, to a different Caleb. He deserves honesty in this, at least, so Caleb takes a deep breath and begins. “That is not, ah. All of the reason. I have done...horrible things. Cruelty calls to me like an old lover, and I go to it willingly still.”</p><p>It is painful to admit it, but freeing too, to let this understanding sear through him. He lets out a not-quite laugh. “You and I are not so alike as I thought, friend. We are shitty people, but you- you are trying to be better and I have only fallen f-”</p><p>"I don't care about that.” The sharp words cut through the guttering fire of Caleb’s thoughts. “Whatever it is you think is horrible, I don’t care."</p><p>Essek’s face is sharp too, and lovely for it. A complex knot of emotions works its way through his expression: regret, anger, fear. Stubbornness. And longing, deep enough to drown in.</p><p>It must be uncomfortable to be so exposed, but Essek lets him see it. Caleb wonders with grim amusement if he wants to reach out to Caleb — would he feel Essek's hand on his arm? Would Essek stare into him with beseeching eyes and beg him to be a better man? ‘Turn back, find your better self, Widogast?’</p><p>Too late for that. Caleb has found himself on the pyre once more, and this time he has pulled it into his skin. Maybe he never left.</p><p>"You <em>should</em> care,” he replies a little viciously, and is rewarded when Essek’s face shutters, just a bit. “Not three days past, I slaughtered people for, ah, no good reason. I took those beautiful spells you taught me and rolled them around and fashioned a thing for my own use. I crushed the people in my way.”</p><p>He has to pause then, to swallow something that lodges in his throat. Bile, maybe, or laughter.</p><p>He feels his hand drift and begin to scratch at his sleeve. No matter; let Essek see this too. “Ja, they were complicit, but.. I crushed them because I could, because it was easy and fast and it would hurt. I enjoyed it. This soft thing you are offering is not for me, Essek. Not anymore."</p><p>It is done. Essek is still. No shock blooms on his face at Caleb’s story, which would have stung before. Caleb had wanted to be better, too. But now Caleb can only hear the dull crackle of flames at his ears, so it does not bother him.</p><p>Essek lets out a slow breath and drops his gaze. For a moment Caleb thinks he has understood that this thing between them has no future, that Caleb has burned away all threads that Essek had not torched himself. But there's a mulish set to Essek’s jaw as he slowly reaches forward and grabs Caleb's hand from his sleeve.</p><p>There is time for Caleb to pull away, step back. He does not.</p><p>"My feelings for you are not soft," Essek says quietly, looking at where his slim dark fingers circle Caleb's pale blocky ones. "They are strong, as sharp as glass in my chest. They- they bleed me every day and I <em>welcome it</em>. They make me better."</p><p>Essek takes a fortifying breath, shoulders winding tight, then brings Caleb’s hand to his lips. He lays a kiss atop the knuckles, not softly, but with the care one might use for something very precious or very dangerous. There’s a spot of chill where his lips touch: a lingering mark Caleb isn't sure is real but which radiates through him nonetheless.</p><p>A slanted smile flashes over Essek’s face as he draws back, still holding Caleb's hand. "You have spoken to me of time. It grants one perspective, no? As I have no time left I can hardly have any perspective on what you have or have not done."</p><p>He laughs, silvery in the quiet of the room. "I would have no merit to judge, even if I wished to. My ledger is just as full as yours. More, probably, and for poorer reasons."</p><p>He turns Caleb's hand over, and presses a slow kiss to the scarred palm. It is ugly, watching tenderness be applied to such a brutal instrument. Even so, something in Caleb finds himself crumbling and desperate for a balm against the flames under his skin. His hand begins to tremble.</p><p>"If you don't want me," Essek half-whispers, and his calm demeanor shakes a little, humiliation creeping into his tone, "if you don't, then I accept it. I will not speak of such again."</p><p>Caleb remembers wanting him desperately, once. He had ached for the opportunity to submerge himself in the deep pool of Essek Thelyss, to find the mind and body and man underneath.</p><p>That man is unearthed before him now. His eyes have shut, terror and heartbreak sweet on his brow, and he is still whispering. “I think you don’t, most days. And that is fine. But. But sometimes you <em>look</em> at me, and-” He cuts himself off, swallows. The cool fingers on Caleb’s hand tighten a fraction, and Caleb cannot find it in himself to pull away.</p><p>"Caleb. If you will have me, I will have you. Wherever you are, whatever cruel or kind or beautiful things you have done, <em>I don't care</em>."</p><p>Essek tilts his head down further and presses a lingering kiss to the soft skin of Caleb's wrist, just over the pulse. It sends a pleasant shock through his veins.</p><p>Seconds tick by. Essek stays there, silently clutching Caleb’s hand.</p><p>His head is entirely bowed, a gesture of trust that Caleb does not deserve. Caleb could kill him, right now. It would be easy. Part of him longs to reach out and hurt; how <em>dare</em> someone hear his story and offer pity or kindness or acceptance. How dare Essek profess to want him; <em>him</em>, Caleb, a butcher’s blade still dripping with blood. No one should want this.</p><p>Essek is still bent over his hand, close enough that each breath tingles over Caleb’s skin. His cheek is soft and cool by Caleb’s fingers, and without intending to, Caleb’s hand settles there, following the chill. Essek leans into it, and it nearly takes Caleb to his knees.</p><p>“You- I will only hurt you, Essek. It is what I am best at,” he gasps out, some terrible emotion gripping his chest like a vise.</p><p>Essek shifts his head slightly to meet Caleb’s gaze. His eyes are clear and deep, and he holds Caleb’s hand against his cheek. “Maybe. Nothing I do is safe. I do not care.”</p><p>“Why?”</p><p>"Because I want <em>you</em>, Caleb," he says simply. “In whatever precious minutes are remaining to me, I want <em>you</em>. That would be enough.”</p><p>Caleb does not have the words to respond. He cannot speak past the embers in his head and doesn’t know how to convince Essek that his minutes are better spent elsewhere, that Caleb would never be enough because Caleb consumes everything around him until it is ash.</p><p>He cannot say any of that and cannot look away, so instead he simply leans down and presses their lips together.</p><p>There's a delicate gasp beneath him, pleasure on the edge of pain. Caleb presses forward; Essek’s mouth opens easily under his.</p><p>He feels hands slide up his shoulders, one blissfully cool palm landing on the back of his neck as the other begins to card through his hair. Despite earlier protestations, it's soft. Essek runs his hands over Caleb as if he's afraid each touch will be the last.</p><p>Caleb finds that he is afraid of the same thing. That he will lose this. And more, that it will be because he has hurt Essek so deeply he cannot recover.</p><p>But then Essek sighs against him, pulling him closer, and it feels so <em>good</em>, so nice to give in. The fire under his skin recedes, and Caleb lets the kiss wash over him like water closing over his head. For a moment, all that matters is making Essek sigh like that again, so he does.</p><p>“You have me,” Caleb murmurs against Essek’s lips. And that will have to be enough for them both.</p>
  </div><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_foot_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff"><p>Hand in unlovable hand, y'all. Feel free to chat at me on twitter at @saturday_sky :)</p></blockquote></div></div>
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